BANF’s smart tires for trucks promise to save fuel and lives
Tire health has a huge impact on a truck’s fuel efficiency and safety on the road.
And yet, with all of the arguably sexier solutions out there offering driver assist features and self-driving software, tires don’t get the attention they deserve. At least, so says Ron Lee, the head of business development at BANF, a startup that builds hardware and software to monitor tire health.
Korea-based BANF, which stands for Begin A New Feature, uses sensors to collect data on tire pressure, temperature, tread wear, wheel alignment, and even lug nut stability. That data is analyzed using machine learning to provide drivers and fleet managers with insights about not only tire health, but also cargo load measurement and road surface conditions. Lee says BANF’s insights are up to 90% accurate, and are useful to everyone from fleet management companies to OEMs to departments of transportation.
“Tires are the sole point of contact with the road,” Lee told TechCrunch. “We’re not saying that we’re replacing vision-based methodologies of capturing potholes or road conditions, but we’re more of a complementary solution. We are more accurate at capturing road coefficient and also the depths of potholes, which is one of the key indexes that road management needs to know because they have limited budgets, so they have to know where to prioritize.”
The four-year-old startup, which has operations in Korea and China and plans to launch in Texas, is coming online at a time when autonomous trucks are gaining a foothold on highways.
“Autonomous vehicles, their aim is to run 24/7 to maximize profit, which means more tire stress,” Lee said, noting that electric vehicles are also heavier due to their batteries, which can wear down tires. “Tire data will be even more important in the future.”
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